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Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

reuters.com

281–290 of 344 posts

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons and culture vary. Finns go hunting, Americans going to a gun range is a sport. And most of those finnish guns are probably decades old and long out of use.

And going back to Switzerland, I was at a festival a few years back which was almost cancelled due to potent protesting by several neighboring towns since the main sport-shooting range was at the same location as the festival's HQ. Thankfully the organizer was able to talk the mayor out of it. We later heard that a neighboring town was able to accommodate the sudden influx. I've heard from friends there is a similar…

Schuetzen matches and anschutz are a thing in the US but come to us courtesy the Germans.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was to note that shutting down manufacturing us no longer a useful way to prevent firearms from being made. They don't need to be 3D printed right now because there are factories. If all the factories shut down tomorrow, that wouldn't stop new guns from being produced.

Might as well not have any laws or regulations ever, then.

I'm not sure what this has has to do with what I said. To me it appears to be a non-sequitur, so I suspect either I and completely missing what you're trying to express, or you misunderstood what I was.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#283
post #102

Honest question: How is this relevant to Hacker News? As a non-American i was rather bewildered to find this here. Is there a serious overlap between gun enthusiasts and the IT community in the US?

Hard SF in the 1970's had a strong libertarian turn, which included much firearms. See also stickjocks.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth. Do you think the monarchys would have happily and peacefully turned over their power because of the power of love? Because someone said please sir?

> Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth. Citation needed. I can't think of any good examples, except maybe for the Revolutionary French "Sans-culottes", who, as the name suggests, were _famously_ well-equipped.

Carroll Quigley makes a convincing argument early in Tragedy and Hope that democratic governments tend to replace authoritarian governments when "amateur weapons" (e.g. rifled musket and pistols of the 19th century) are the pinnacle of weapons technology and the standard of living is high enough for the citizens to readily purchase those weapons, and vice versa when "specialist weapons" (e.g. tanks and airplanes of the 20th century) become the pinnacle of weapons tech.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#285
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont forget the hundreds of years of engineering required just to get to the 1911. It's not like the 1911 was pooped out one day. Pistol and revolver engineering is amazing for the fact reliability and predictability are the forefront of needs. Everything else is technically optional. It's and industry that's standing on the shoulders of giants without a doubt. To be faaaaaair, without Colt's revolutionary wheely gat…

For certain, but let’s not forget that the time period of the late 19th-early 20th century represented a flowering of innovation and invention across all areas of life and tooling that is arguably very unique in human history. That spirit and the thinking that was applied in such diverse areas is staggering, and as I read more about it (say, 1868-1915ish?) the more I’m convinced it’s very under-appreciated.

>That spirit and the thinking that was applied in such diverse areas is staggering, and as I read more about it (say, 1868-1915ish?) the more I’m convinced it’s very under-appreciated.

HELL YEA! Seriously, that time period was just dumped with brilliance in its own right, especially in engineering. It's so amazing what accomplishments were made with such basic tech. I mean seriously, the basic machine shop these days is FAR more advanced than what was available to the engineering cats back then. But those folks were spitting out brilliance like we use toilet paper after a pre-pandemic taco Tuesday.

There's a part of me that thinks our general mindset to engineering, learning and research is fundamentally different compared to that golden era of science and engineering. Honestly, I think it's for the worst. We're too subservient to technology rather than being the ones holding the chains and whips to the machines. That's going to be our downfall. Being switches to the machines and not knowing when to switch them off.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#286
post #156

Can someone more familiar with this world explain where the law ended up on building your own guns? I recall a controversy around whether you can even share open source 3D printing plans (which to me felt like a violation of the first amendment) but leaving that aside, I've also heard that it is possible to do so using more traditional methods.

The State department tried to ban the exchange of digital plans for very simplistic, rudimentary 3d-printed pistols under ITAR regs. It was an over-reaction to an exaggerated fear that everyone could print guns out of plastic now, and I think the last administration (Trumps') finally revoked the rule. You can, in fact, print a gun out of plastic that will work, but it may be cheaper and more effective to build one ou…

> You won't be hitting a gong at 1000 yards, but you'll hit a pie plate at 20 pretty easy.

Depends on what you're building. If you're making your own AR-15 lower, there's no detrimental impact on accuracy - all of those parts are contained within the 'upper', which (in the US) is not regulated as a firearm.

If you're building from scratch, though, accuracy is really not going to happen. Not unless you have actual machine tools and training.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#287
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And going back to Switzerland, I was at a festival a few years back which was almost cancelled due to potent protesting by several neighboring towns since the main sport-shooting range was at the same location as the festival's HQ. Thankfully the organizer was able to talk the mayor out of it. We later heard that a neighboring town was able to accommodate the sudden influx. I've heard from friends there is a similar…

Schuetzen matches and anschutz are a thing in the US but come to us courtesy the Germans.

How does "schuetzen" and "anschutz" translate to English? Google Translate doesn't appear to be very helpful.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#288
post #4

I do not know much about how good Colt is doing, but isn't 220mil plus 18mil in stocks a bit cheap?

Their bankruptcy several years ago kept them alive but didn’t really solve their problems. They’re little more than a brand (not an entirely positive one) and manufacturing capacity. Their revenue is offset by their expenses.

> Their revenue is offset by their expenses.

Sounds like me.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even smartphone demand slows down. And that's a device with daily utility with a 2-5 year life. Seriously, I'm coming at this from a perspective of a country boy who went shooting 3-4 times a month as a teen, and earned a bounty for shooting pigeons on a farm. How much more demand can be filled for more guns the mostly sit around and gather dust? It's a market driven by ignorance and fear -- folks are treating these…

Population continues to grow, and there are many Americans who don't own guns who represent a big market. Many have purchased their first in the past year. And yes, lots of people like collecting a shooting a wide variety of guns. Most of then do it for reasons other than or in addition to prepping. The new firearms market is not going to die; the idea that it will is fudd nonsense.

The immigrant population particularly. There’s a lot of suppressed interest overseas that gets exercised upon arrival, whether visiting or immigrating.

Re: Czech gunmaker CZG buys Colt in cash and stock deal

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ICBM hitting a target purely on internal guidance is an entirely different level of problem from what SpaceX is doing with cooperative positioning systems at the target. Also keep in mind that the "wikipedia numbers" for classified weapons systems are usually "at least" numbers, not exact. It's not at all clear who has more data between GOOG and NSA. Both don't exactly declare the numbers, but it is known that in…

"in several recent years NSA has been the largest single buyer of spinning disks in the world." The rest of the world moved to SSDs in ~2010. Google's been storing the whole web on flash since then. (I guess if you're archiving for slow-speed retrieval disks are still useful, but if that's your use-case, why wouldn't you use tape?)

I’ve worked on infrastructure (design) engineering teams at a very large company that still does their own datacenters. I can confirm that spinners are still very much in use and are not used for archival purposes - that’s what tapes are designed and used for.
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